Icecream with Mango and Mahua

This is a sequel to my previous blog: Salad for Spouse (Link: https://pkdash-author.blogspot.com/2024/06/salad-for-spouse.html

Several readers got most of the ingredients right, but no one got it all. I had put up a googly; that was a little unfair; since two ingredients could not be seen and one rather difficult to recognise!

A few readers recalled a salad I had made several months ago. This one looks rather like that, a reader observed. No, that was a guava salad!

This one is indeed Unique!

How is this salad unique? It is the only salad till date with Mahua flower as an ingredient! Chef with a Dash invented and served this Unique Salad on 14 June 2024 to Dear Spouse on Day 1 of the three-day Raja Festival of Odisha.

He asserts his IPR for this invention!

Ingredients: For serving Two

·      Potatoes- 1 medium-size

·      Tomatoes- 1

·      Moong sprouts- a handful

·      Roasted chana- a few spoonful

·      Mahua flowers- 15-20

·      Olive Oil- a small spoonful

·      Raw mango- 1 quarters of a small mango

·      A small piece of jaggery

·      Garlic – 6 cloves, peeled

·      Ginger – a small piece

·      Red chili powder – a small spoonful

·      Green chili – one, chopped fine; another sliced in length

·      Mint leaves

·      Optional additions (I didn’t use any of these.): Roasted peanuts, pomegranate, chopped onion, Chat masala, lemon, mustard oil in place of olive oil for a tang and a zing

Recipe

·      Boil (not overcook) the potatoes, dice to cubes

·      Tomatoes – dice to cubes

·      Mahua flowers – soak the dried flowers in water for 2 hours and clean it properly; the flowers would be tender and fluffy

·      Make a raw mango chutney - two or three pieces of raw mango, a spoon of jeera, one green chili, a piece of jaggery, and a bunch of coriander leaves

·      In a salad bowl, put the potato and tomato cubes, moong sprouts, roasted chana, mahua flowers, crushed garlic and ginger, add a spoonful of virgin olive oil, red chili powder, minced green chili, mango chutney, salt to taste.

·      Toss gently. Vigorous tossing would crush and dismember the mahua flowers!

·      Put bowl in freezer for 10 mins

·      Plating: Serve the salad, heaping it with a spoon, and garnish the top with a few whole mahua flowers, pudina leaves, and the green chili diced at length.

·      Enjoy!

Note: The salad is nutritious, healthy, and sumptuous. Can be eaten with meals or as a snack. All ingredients are readily available, except for mahua flowers.

No processed item used, but for olive oil even without which the salad would taste fine. Next time I make this salad, I’ll try with mustard oil. That’d give a zing, and make my salad totally local.

Salad dressing is a freshly-made raw mango chutney; in other seasons, aam chur or tamarind pulp may be used.

Next when I make this salad, I'd toss a few spoonfuls of roasted seeds (pumpkin, watermelon, sunflower, chia, flax, sesame, soynuts). Easily available, a Ready-to-Eat Snack, a 7-In-1-Mix. That'd make it a Designer Salad!

Mahua Flowers

Where to buy? Not available easily. I bought half a kilo for fifty rupees from Mansaram, a Korku tribal from Harda, MP who offered from his food stall at the recently concluded Mahua Mahotsav, Tribal Museum, Bhopal tribal cuisine including mahua laddoo, mahua puri paired with a local saag, bajre ki kheer.

A word of caution. Since mahua flowers are picked up from the ground, the dried flowers are likely to have a little soil sticking to it, and must be cleaned before using it for edible purpose. That’s not difficult. Just soak it in water for a few hours and rinse well. Now, it’s good to use.

Mahua Cuisine

With the mahua bought from Mansaram, I have made mahua parathas, pairing it with tender green jute leaf curry from my terrace garden. Mahua-garnished salad, of course.

Here is a dessert I made today.

Dessert Creation by Chef with a Dash!* 

Amul Butterscotch ice-cream served with a slice of mango, and a few soaked-to-soft mahua flowers. There was a power-cut in our area, and the ice-cream is a little runny; but the pairing was great.

On my request, Shiba Narayan Rana, a dear friend has sent from Odisha a packet of dried mahua flowers, the produce of his own mahua trees. I plan to make a few more dishes with mahua – chakel or chakuli – thin and crispy pancakes made with rice, black gram, and mahua flower batter; poda-pitha with the same batter; laddoo with alsi and/or til seed.

The easiest to do is this: Take a handful of dried mahua flowers, toss it on a non-stick pan, roast for 2 to 3 mins on low flame. It’s a tender flower, take care, don’t char it.

That’s it, enjoy once it cools.

Colours of Mahua

For those not familiar with mahua, here are a few photos:

Freshly-gathered pale-yellow corolla of mahua flowers.

 

Dried mahua flowers bought from Mansaram.

Mahua flowers after soaking and rinsing.

***

*My Dessert creation might have been inspired by a young chef- Prateek Sadhu's use of mahua flowers to garnish dessert serving in his Mumbai restaurant 'Masque'.

Anshu Vaish, an esteemed reader shared this: 

"Years ago, I ate  strawberry custard with mahua flowers - served at a dinner hosted by BMS Rathore and his wife at their home. Delicious dessert!"